Tuesday, May 18, 2010

No on the Tentative Agreement

***Please forward this widely***

Many issues are important to the members of UESF but we in EDU believe that the issue of layoffs is the main concern of the members of our union. We are therefore urging UESF members to vote NO on the tentative agreement.

UESF members have been angered by SFUSD's hardball negotiating that threatens the livelihoods of our colleagues. Each of us in EDU (Educators for a democratic Union) heard members say they would be willing to make sacrifices to save the jobs of their colleagues.

EDU supported the UESF bargaining team when it made "No Layoffs!" the central component of their organizing campaign (as opposed to the important, but less central issues of 18 non-monetary, contractual items). During this campaign, UESF's leadership demonstrated that the district has the resources to rescind every single layoff. UESF called on the District to cut much deeper into the $52 million in consultant funds. UESF called on SFUSD to use a large portion of the nearly $40 million in reserves to preserve jobs.

The money was there but the political will was not. SFUSD did not take our demands seriously until UESF set a date (May 20th) for a membership meeting to authorize a strike vote. This single act helped communicate what we were willing to do to prevent all the layoffs. This, together with political pressure from families and students, forced the District to dramatically reduce the number of layoffs.

But SFUSD has not gone far enough. They still aim to lay-off up to 250 of our certificated and classified members. This is unacceptable. We in EDU are convinced that the money is there to save the jobs of the 250 brothers and sisters who work in our schools and have proven their dedication to our students and families.

Unfortunately, the UESF leadership pulled the plug on the strike-vote authorization meeting. This was a serious error. Until May 12, the UESF leadership maintained there was enough money to prevent all layoffs. What caused the leadership to back off from this position?

What does it say to our members when we ask all of us to "share" in making sacrifices, but then accept layoffs that would have some sacrifice more: their jobs and dreams of being an educator in SF.

Some will say it is irresponsible to dip into the reserves. The opposite is true: It is irresponsible NOT to use the reserves. A teacher or a para lost is a blow to our classrooms, to our children.

Replenishing the reserves would then be a major task of the union, the Board of Education and of the city and state officials. UESF could spearhead this fight, as it did in the streets of San Francisco on March 4. One of the main demands of that historic day of action, featured on the banner of the rally platform, was Progressive Taxation Now!

Five years ago, our willingness to strike resulted in an 8.5% raise. We were out in the streets with our communities on March 4th. The Oakland Education Association's recent one-day strike forced OUSD back to the bargaining table. Action works!

To that end, EDU will be urging all UESF members to vote "NO" on any tentative agreement that has layoffs in it. We do think it's crucial that every UESF member vote on the tentative agreement, so we will be abstaining when the Assembly votes whether or not to ratify the agreement on May 19. EDU believes that ultimately this decision must be made by the members: vote for the tentative agreement and accept 250 layoffs, or take a stand now to save all our members' jobs –vote no on the tentative agreement, go back to the bargaining table to demand that all layoffs be rescinded and authorize UESF to call for a strike.

Monday, May 3, 2010

UESF Assembly Report 4/28/10

UESF Assembly Report (4/28/10) - from EDU

Attendance – 55

Meeting Agenda:

Special Order of Business:

CALSTRS presentation

Resolutions:

1. Bargaining Package
2. Jobs with Justice
3. Candidates for State Office
4. Support for AD12 & 13 Progressive Slate of Candidates
5. Support for Mello Roos Parcel Tax

Organizing

The first issue of substance to come to the floor on the Assembly was the “Bargaining Package”. It’s message was exclusively on the non-monetary issues. “Whereas the SFUSD negotiators are seeking to deny UESF members non-monetary contractual improvements in difficult times” and finished off with “Therefore the bargaining team is directed to settle contract negotiations with a package proposal that addresses the various outstanding elements of the issues on the table”

This was vague to the extreme. Lita proposed language that added language on no-layoffs but the unions did not want to ‘tie the bargaining team’s hands” by instructing the BT to bargain from that position. EDU members pointed out that members could care less about the non-monetary issues and wanted most to see the layoffs resisted so the resolution should speak to that. Also, there was no real clarity on what the UESF would actually be fighting for or where the bottom line was.

In the end, I think EDU might have been better off to vote against this on the basis of it being so extremely vague but I think resolution was so weak and the room so deflated, it was not entirely clear what to do. The BT is operating so non-transparently and with such little oversight by the Assembly or even the Executive Board that we that we have sort of gotten a little used to meaningless resolutions like this which give the BT carte blanche to do anything. As it was the resolution won with an addition of ‘No layoffs’ in the whereas but no clear direction of the BT by the Assembly.

UESF unanimously supported entrance into the Jobs with Justice Coalition.

The issue of Candidates for State Office and for AD12 & 13 was skipped. The most provocative one was calling for UESF to endorse Jerry Brown for Governor and Gavin Newsome for Lt. Governor. When I approached Dennis K. about why these issues were skipped he told me that they did not need a recommendation or vote from the Assembly. He said a COPE endorsement and Executive Board vote was good enough. I am not sure that’s true but it was clear they would rather discuss supporting 2 candidates with lousy records on supporting public sector workers, supporting progressive taxation or public education. It was just unions throwing more money down the Democratic Party sink hole and doing it without any discussion by the Assembly.

We then had to wait through a long discussion about CALSTRS. Some of this was interesting, but you would know that our union is at impasse, in deep crisis organizationally, and about to make historically large concessions in its contract. This report could have been given any month not in the context of the deepest crisis our union has ever faced.

The Organizing section was clearly an attempt to try and breathe some life into our union which is on life-support. It seemed also to be led by the CTA organizer who was brought in. We broke up into 10 focus groups and were asked questions on where our sites were at, what questions were out there and what should UESF do now.

People should report on their focus group, but our facilitator got an earful. Members could care less about the 18 non-monetary items. Layoffs want clarity on layoffs. Members are not clear on what we are saying to counter SFUSD claim that they are bargaining in good faith. SFUSD has effectively gotten out the message that the union is the block based on 18 issues many do not feel are critical in comparison to the issues we face. Members need to see the union aggressively countering SFUSD propaganda with our own information. Members are deflated and don’t see the point of the going to school board. They need to believe they are getting a clear message from the BT and they are not. They get mush. I made a suggestion that BT members go on a campaign to visit school sites to rally members around the contract and around layoffs. There was some defensiveness around this at first but eventually our facilitator relented and just heard us. I did not see him writing much down though.


Finally, there was the President’s report. There the issue was clarified that UESF had offered $26 million in the form of 8 furlough days over two years and in terms of money from Prop. A. There are three mediation dates, the first April 29th and two more before the May 11th Board of Ed meeting. There overall plan seemed to again focus on another Board of Ed. Rally on May 11 before the Layoff deadline. . At the same time, As confused or inept as the BT is, we ought to be encouraging people to go to the May 11th rally. We don't have the luxury of sitting on the sidelines as 1100 union members face lay-off. I think EDU's main job right now is to try to hold the leadership to their commitment to NO LAY-OFFS




Finally, I personally was shocked at the complete lack of support for the OEA brothers and sisters going on their one-day strike. Dennis was polite it dismissing it, but VP Plack was positively derisive of their strike and their attempt to resist a contract being imposed on them. It was rich to a hear a union leadership which is doing nothing deride a union which has actually tried to mobilize a fight back (with whatever problems it has). Disgusting. And the complete opposite of solidarity or the spirit of an injury to one is an injury to all which is the backbone of unionism.

Thie was a miserable, depressing Assembly. Overall, the leadership seems to be completely isolated, is not willing to share information or strategy in any of the normal forums (Assembly or even Executive Board) and has just confined the decision making to a few people on the BT. This is a disaster and spells bad news for the coming bargaining under an imposed negotiator. Our union is no where near to mobilizing, our BT is isolated and confused and those of us who have been arguing for a different approach in EDU are now at a loss for how to proceed in the face of no vehicle for entering into decision making in our union.

Thie was a miserable, depressing Assembly. Overall, the leadership seems to be completely isolated, is not willing to share information or strategy in any of the normal forums (Assembly or even Executive Board) and has just confined the decision making to a few people on the BT. This is a disaster and spells bad news for the coming bargaining under an imposed negotiater. Our union is no where near to mobilizing, our BT is isolated and confused and those of us who have been arguing for a different approach in EDU are now at a loss for how to proceed in the face of no vehicle for entering into decision making in our union.


At the same time, as bleak as all this looks, Adrienne J. sent some words of encouragement that think are worth considering (here it is below)

"While I do agree that it looks like doors are closing with almost no way for the membership to get in, I still think it's important to emphasize to ourselves and others that EDU has continued to be a group that is asking questions, that is trying to push towards action, that is raising solidarity, etc. When we have to go back to our sites (if we haven't already) and report on the dismal state of affairs, there is a layer of people around us who are grateful to hear some straight talk, who want to come closer to EDU because they agree that this is the kind of conversation and organization it will take to even have a chance of building a membership that can fight for itself. Folks should know that Deirdre who came to our last meeting emailed me to let me know she has another coworker who might come to our next EDU meeting. I think I have a coworker who is closer to committing to checking out our next meeting. I wonder if most of us don't also have that 1 person, or 2 people that also might want to do the same. I think now is time to look around us and see who else is disgusted at this turn of events and might be interested in coming closer to our caucus."